


Alternia High School Presents: Rent

by maria_j_harper



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - High School, Drug Abuse, Explicit Language, Homophobia, Love Triangles, Multi, Musicalstuck, Transphobia, You don't have to see Rent to read this but I do recommend it, so much drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-13 15:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4528128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maria_j_harper/pseuds/maria_j_harper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ah, high school. It's a time for sexual frustration and confusion, awkward love triangles, complaining about teachers, and musical theater. Wait, what was that last one again?</p><p>Seven young people audition for a play, not realizing at the time that doing so is about to change their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Auditions

“Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes,” the first person on stage belted, like they had something to prove and they were going to prove it through sheer volume.  
Their name was Karkat, and they tended to default to “he/him” pronouns at school because, much as they would like to be the genderqueer thorn in all the cisnormative people’s sides, there was the small issue that there would be a few jocks who might literally kill them. They couldn’t even bring themself to audition openly for any of the queer characters, announcing to the casting board that they were auditioning for the part of Roger. They were an angry freshman, angry with the world and angry with themself.

“Five hundred twenty five thousand moments, oh dear,” crooned the second person on stage, voice soft, like no one had ever told him he had an amazing singing voice. He did have an amazing singing voice.  
His name was John Egbert, and he was really only doing this because everyone said extracurriculars would polish up his resume. He was auditioning for Mark, of course. He loved film, Mark made film, it seemed like the perfect fit. He had never actually seen a production of Rent, or gotten around to reading the script. He only knew that it was a modern musical about freeloading artists. He had no idea what he was getting himself into.

“Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes,” sang the third person on stage, voice confidant, like he’d heard all his life he had a talent for making music. He did have a talent for making music.  
His name was Dave, and he was auditioning for Roger. Okay, so maybe it was a little bit intimidating, Roger looked a lot like him in twenty years, if he was being realistic. But that was just why this role was meant for him. He was secretly into musicals in an entirely too sincere way, but he hid it well.

“How do you measure, measure a year?” asked the fourth person on stage. She sang soulfully, showing off her impressive range as she sang.  
Her name was Kanaya Maryam, and her girlfriend was going to be auditioning right after her. She was auditioning for Joanne, obviously. Between her posture and her style, type-casting meant that she was a shoo-in for the role, she was sure.

“In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee,” sang the fifth person on stage. She sang perhaps a little too loudly, the way someone at a bar might.  
Her name was Rose, and she insisted she wasn’t an alcoholic, she had just had a nip or two of some liquor... to take the edge off. What kind had it been again? Tasted like mouthwash, anyways. Her girlfriend had insinuated she might learn something from a role as Maureen. She guessed that this was a not-so-subtle hint that she was getting tired of dating a drunken baby, but Rose was handling it, really.

“In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife,” sang the sixth person on stage. Her voice had a low, smoky quality to it that made her sound not a little masculine. She used to get teased for it, but she’d made her bullies suffer right back until they left her alone. Now she was using it to her advantage.  
Her name was Vriska, and she’d given the director a whole pitch about casting a DFAB person in Mark’s roll just to add that extra gut-punch to his backstory. You didn’t even have to change the script, the subtext just wrote itself, as she’d told Miss Peregrine. Nobody had to say Mark was a trans guy and Maureen had left him for a “real woman,” it would be on everyone’s minds anyway.  
In other words, she had manipulated her way to a sure-fire win in getting to play one of the lead characters. Hell yes.

“In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure, a year in the life?” The seventh person on stage’s voice was quiet, fragile, and broke as she sang the last word.  
Her name was Terezi, and while she had run into a couple of ex-boyfriends backstage (awkward), she didn’t really care. There was a lot she didn’t really care about these days, mainly concerning herself. She was hooked on her current boyfriend and the drugs that he gave her. She didn’t feel like she knew anyone else anymore, knew anything else anymore, and being Mimi wouldn’t be much of a stretch from being who she already was. She was only auditioning out of some vague hope that playing this roll might help her to deal with her situation. Or something. She’d seen a flyer, and it had just sort of clicked, stuck to the inside of her head the way it was stuck to the wall. Maybe it was a chance to get to know people again.

Two days later, the casting pages were posted. There were about two pages of minor roles, chorus people, stage people, and extras. Than there was the fateful main cast page, the one that everyone gathered around with excitement.  
John groaned. “Oh my god, I got Collins? I cannot believe that Vriska got chosen for Mark over me!”  
“Looks like you’ve still got a few things to learn, John!” Vriska crowed triumphantly.  
Dave said nothing, his smug expression said it all for him. John punched his shoulder. “Augh, you bastard, you got Roger without even trying!” he cried with exasperation.  
“Who even got Benny?” Someone asked.  
“Who even cares? He has, what, half a song? He’s only even a main character because the story needed a villain.” Someone else said dismissively.  
“Looks like it’s Eridan.”  
“Typical.”  
“Angel? Fucking typecasting! What, like just because I’m kind of delicate, I can’t be the straight male lead?” Karkat grumbled for anyone who was listening. He had to bite his lip hard to keep a smile from turning it up at the corners.  
“Miss Peregrine, Miss Peregrine please, I don’t understand, why am I Maureen?” Kanaya demanded, chasing after the drama teacher frantically.  
“Do you not want the role?”  
“No, I mean yes, I mean- I just resonate so much more with Joanne, as a character!”  
“Exactly. Playing her, you’re playing it safe, staying in your comfort zone. Maureen will let you branch out a little, get you out of your shell!”  
“I just don’t know how comfortable I am playing that role.”  
“That, my dear, is why it’s called acting!”  
Rose found her girlfriend and patted her arm. “I wanted you to get the role too. At least we still get to be the lesbians in the cast though! Just not the lesbians we hoped to be.”  
Kanaya snorted at that. “That’s right, we must always dream of being the ultimate lesbians, but we can never truly succeed.” Her voice was full of faux drama and real humor.  
“You do realize you’re gonna have to kiss a dude, right?” Dave asked John.  
“Wait, what?”


	2. First Rehearsal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who came prepared, and who winds up looking like an ass? Hint: the ass's name rhymes with lawn.

“Welcome everyone, and thank you all so much for coming! I know that it can be discouraging when you don’t get the role you wanted, but please remember, we couldn’t make this magical thing called theater happen without each and every one of you! Now I’ll be handing out some calendars. As you can see, some rehearsals are for the whole cast, while some are for the leads only. However, I cannot stress enough the importance of studying each of your lines carefully and rehearsing as much as you can, not just when I mandate that you do so. If you’re in the main cast and don’t show for three rehearsals, you will be replaced by your understudy. I’m sorry, but the show must go on. Theater is an art, not some extra credit frivolity. This isn’t to say it can’t be fun! But I put a whole lot of time and effort into each production, so if you’re not prepared to do the same, please let me know after this rehearsal, and I will give you some nice and easy stage work to do.” Miss Peregrine took a deep breath, stood, and clapped her hands. “Now then, Rent! Who here has read the whole script? Be honest.”  
Vriska’s hand shot up. Karkat raised their hand a little more slowly. So did Dave.There were a couple of people in the chorus as well, and Karkat recognized Tavros, who was on stage crew. His stammer probably made getting acting roles a little tough for him, they supposed.  
“Alright, and who has seen a production of the script, theatrical or cinematic?”  
Suddenly John, who had thought that he was at least in good company, found himself rather singled out. There were a couple of others who hadn’t ever seen Rent, but no one in the main cast.  
“Alright! I’ll be passing around your scripts now, as well as some CD’s with the soundtrack. I expect you to all listen to it over and over again, until you’re humming La Vie Boheme in your sleep!”  
This got a chuckle out of the group.  
“Now then, everyone up! We’re going to practice the titular song! Vriska, Kanaya, Rose, Dave, John, Eridan, you’re up front. Chorus, arrange yourselves by range, high to low, left to right!”  
This took some time, as there were some who didn’t know a soprano from an alto, or a tenor from a bass. Then everyone had to find the lyrics in their scripts, meanwhile Miss Peregrine cued up the music on her CD player.  
Dave leaned over to John. “Oh man, CD’s? I feel like I’m eight again. So fucking retro.”  
John snickered. “There’s a playlist on Youtube, right?”  
“Oh definitely.”  
The music started, and Vriska started singing, throwing herself into the song full-force. "How do you document real life when real life is getting more like fiction each day? Headlines, breadlines blow my mind, and now this deadline: Eviction -- or pay! Rent!"  
Dave cleared his throat and straightened, waiting for his lead-in cue. He started moving himself to the rhythm of the beat, and soon started doing some belting of his own. "How do you write a song when the chords sound wrong, though they once sounded right and rare? When the notes are sour, where is the power you once had to ignite the air? Now we're hungry and frozen-" Vriska cut in, "Some life that we've chosen!" Together, they chanted, "How we gonna pay, how we gonna pay, how we gonna pay last year's rent?"  
Rose and Kanaya did their verses like they’d practiced before. "Don't screen, Maureen, it's me - Joanne, your Substitute Production Manager!" Rose sang. "Hey, hey, hey!"  
"Did you eat?"  
"Don't change the subject, Maureen."  
"But darling - you haven't eaten all day!"  
"You won't throw up, you won't throw up. The digital delay--Didn't blow up ...exactly. There may have been one teeny tiny spark. You're not calling Mark!"  
John waited for his own cue, but missed it by a few seconds anyway. He scrambled to catch up, mangled his lines, and finally gave up.  
“Sorry, sorry! Can I try again?”  
“Is there something wrong, John?” Miss Peregrine asked.  
“N-no, I guess I just didn’t come as prepared as… everyone else. I was honestly expecting to wind up in the chorus,” he admitted quietly.  
“Well, go over your next few lines, and sing them for us. You know the melody now?”  
“I- I think so. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hold everyone up.”  
“And yet here you are, holding us up even more with useless apologies!” Karkat growled.  
“Sorry.” John looked over his lyrics again. He cleared his throat.  
“How do you stay on your feet when on every street it's 'Trick Or Treat,' and tonight it's 'Trick?' 'Welcome back to town,' I should lie down. Everything's brown and uh - oh, I feel sick.” He tried to give it the proper tone, but he knew he needed to practice a whole lot more if he wanted to get it right. Part of the trouble, of course, was that he didn't know the context for the lines.  
Dave followed up with his line, but only after a brief hesitation. “Where is he?”  
“Getting dizzy.”  
And the song continued. John didn’t miss his next cue. He still felt like his performance was pretty unpolished in comparison to the other’s. He would just have to follow Miss Peregrine’s advice and listen over and over to the soundtrack until he was on par with everyone else. It was actually pretty fun singing along with the chorus on the parts where everyone was supposed to sing. He liked the way sound reverberated through him when he was harmonizing with the group.  
The song ended, and Miss Peregrine applauded. “Alright, well done everyone! Vriska, remember that you’re not the only one in the spotlight right now, you’re not singing a solo. You have to sing with the group, harmonize with the group! John, excellent progress today! Please trust that if I thought your voice belonged in the chorus, then that’s where you would be. Dave, since you like things retro, perhaps you would prefer it if I replaced your CD with some vinyl?”  
“Hell yes, that would be awesome!”  
“...I was joking. Anyhow, I don’t care whether you listen to the CD’s or not, as long as you do listen to the soundtrack. Make sure you read the script too, since there may be some adaptive changes to make it a little more school appropriate. I’m afraid that so far we’ve just been very lucky to even be getting away with putting on this production at all, and if we want our luck to continue, we may have to tweak a few things.”  
“Not going to ask me to swap roles with Vriska, are you? Because there’s bending so you don’t get broken, and then there’s just being a little chickenshit,” Karkat growled. “Not that I’m exactly fucking thrilled to be the tranny who dies before the end, but if you’ve got principles then you should fucking stick to them.” They were lying. They were absolutely thrilled to be the transexual girl who dies before the end. They just didn’t want anyone to know that, almost as badly as they didn’t want the part taken from them.  
“No, I’m not going to make you switch. We’ll just have to… tweak a few things. Trust me, I’m not going to make any changes I don’t absolutely have to. Now then, we’ll practice the blocking for this song next week. For now, let’s practice Seasons of Love a few times, sound good?”


	3. It's Not A Date, I Don't Know What You're Talking About

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the co-stars get to know each other off stage a little better. Turns out, they are all absolute nerds. No one is surprised by this.

“Dude, you didn’t tell me you could sing!” These were the first words out of Dave’s mouth when the rehearsal ended. He punched John’s shoulder accusingly.  
John rolled with his punch, but he was blushing. “I dunno, I guess it’s not a thing I do a whole lot.”  
“Okay, musical night, it is an official plan. We are doing this man, we are making this happen. Oh hey, you should invite Karkat, then you two could do a little ‘rehearsing.’” Dave waggled his eyebrows suggestively.  
John sputtered a little, but all innuendo aside, it was a good idea. If they were potentially going to have to make lip-to-lip contact, they should at least be friends. He approached the delicate grumbler, who had black hair and skin the color of coffee and cream. “Hey, Karkat, right? Dave ‘n’ I were just talking about getting together to hang out and watch some movies. Want to join?”  
Karkat looked at him like he was something slimy and green that they’d found on their shoe- that is- like they were disgusted, and utterly confused by the fact that he was talking to them. “Why?”  
“Well, our characters are in a romantic relationship, right? We should at least try to get a bit more comfortable with each other.”  
“Or maybe you should at least try to learn your lines, instead of goofing off with your little friend,” Karkat spat. “I don’t like you, John, and I don’t have to like you, no matter who you’re supposed to be playing.”  
Dave decided to intercede. “Oh come on Kit-Kat, we can run some lines too. We’re gonna be watching musicals~!” He sing-songed the last word, giving Karkat a look that said “we both know you can’t resist for long.”  
Karkat crossed their arms in front of them, and both boys were certain they were going to say no, close themself off completely from them. Then they muttered, “Fine.”  
John turned to Dave. “You two know each other?”  
Dave nodded. “I used to date a girl he used to date. Not at the same time, obviously. Well, not for the most part, anyways.”  
Karkat was already pretty tense, so the way being called “he” made their hands tighten around their arms was nearly imperceptible unless you were paying very close attention, which neither John nor Dave were at the moment.  
“So do you guys want to just come over to my place or something?” John suggested.  
“No, my place is better, I’ve got a bunch of musicals on DVD and Blu Ray. You know, for the ironies.”  
“Right, sure Dave, because the ironies obviously thrive off of owning the Blu Ray special edition of West Side Story,” John said, rolling his eyes.  
“They do, they really do. So I’m thinking we alternate between Broadway and Disney, with the occasional miscellaneous musical thrown in for kicks. And if nobody sings along to a song, we all have to stop the movie and run lines for a while.”  
“You’re put way too much thought into this,” Karkat accused. “But what about Disney movies that got made into Broadway productions later, like The Lion King?”  
“We can just vote on which version we’d rather watch,” Dave reasoned. “Now I’ve gotta call my bro to tell him to come pick us up, you guys had better call your parent-shaped people to let them know you’re coming home with me. Tell them we’ll probably be up late, and not to worry, because my bro keeps condoms in the bathroom medicine cabinet.”  
Karkat glared at him. “I am not telling my dad that.”  
“Relax Karkles, it was a joke.”  
“Don’t. Call me that.” That had been Terezi’s nickname for Karkat, they hated when Dave used it. They walked away, flipping through their contacts list for their father’s number.  
John and Dave did the same, keeping their messages short and to the point.  
“Bro says he’ll be here in ten,” Dave announced after hanging up.  
“My dad wants me home before midnight,” Karkat said, sounding harried, as if he’d grown tired of fighting his father on this issue, and for Karkat to be tired of fighting, that really said something.  
“Man, that really limits how many movies we can watch. Thoughts?”  
“On movies? Yeah. I don’t mind a few sad musicals, but we should end on a happy note. Oh, and we do have to watch the movie adaptation of our play at least once, that’s a given.”  
“Got it, so we can kick it off by watching Les Mis, as long as we wrap it all up with The Aristocats.”  
Karkat glared at him. “Will you stop it with the cat jokes? Yes, we get it, my name is weird. Beep beep meow, motherfucker- fucking hilarious. Except not, because it’s old and tired, not to mention lamer than ass!”  
“But Karkat… everybody wants to be a cat! Because a cat’s the only cat who knows where it’s at.” Dave protested.  
“Did you just fucking quote an Aristocats song at me? That’s it, I’m done, I’m out. I am never speaking to you again!” Karkat shouted, though they made no move to actually leave.  
John suddenly began giggling at the both of them, as though he’d been holding back laughter this entire time. “Oh my god, the way you two fight, it’s almost like you used to date each other instead of Terezi.”  
“As if!” Karkat shrieked.  
Dave shrugged casually. “Nah brah, Kitty-Kat here’s just an ornery little fucker is all.”  
John snickered. “Brah? Are you a surfer now?”  
“No, just a man of excellent irony.”  
There was a beep from the parking lot, and they all startled.  
“That’ll be my bro, come on!” Dave practically flash stepped out the door, leaving John and Karkat in his dust in his rush to not keep his bro waiting. John jogged after him, with Karkat on his heels.  
Dave was already in the car when they got there, ass sitting smugly in the front seat. They both plopped into the rear passenger seats of the little orange Volvo without complaint. The ride there was pretty quiet, and Karkat got the sense that they weren’t the only one in this car who found Dave’s brother rather intimidating.  
Once at Dave’s apartment, Bro informed them that there was pizza on the kitchen counter, and to just yell if they needed anything. Then he was just sort of suddenly gone, or so it seemed to the guests, though Dave assured them that he did this all the time, and was likely in his room, or taking an absurdly long shower.  
Since he was a gracious host, Dave let John pick the first movie. He chose Chicago, since it was another musical he’d ever seen, but had heard good things about. Karkat loved All That Jazz, and everyone knew the words to Cell Block Tango, but nobody wanted to sing along to When You Good To Mama, so they wound up having to pause and run lines.  
Karkat chose Beauty and the Beast, and surprised everyone with his high tenor when singing along to Tale As Old As Time. John grinned, glad that he was enjoying himself, and happily made Gaston’s song into a duet with Dave. By the end of it, Karkat was actually in tears, and John was really concerned for them.  
“Shut up, Egbert, I’m fine! I just find this movie really moving, christ!”  
Dave, apparently, felt the need to preamble his choice with “So you guys know how the villain songs are always the best?”  
John thought about all the great villain songs he knew. “Yeah, you have a point.”  
“I prefer the romantic songs,” Karkat sniffed.  
“Well what if I told you I had a movie that was nothing BUT villain songs? Don’t worry though Kitty, there’s some romance in there too.”  
Karkat facepalmed. “Oh god, is this going where I think it’s going?”  
John looked at them curiously. “Why, where do you think it’s going?”  
Dave put in the movie, and sat down, barely concealing his excitement. “Oh come on, don’t tell me you don’t like Doctor Horrible’s Sing Along Blog! How can you not like it? It’s a classic!”  
Karkat shook their head. “Fucking nerd. Dave Strider, you are an utter fucking nerd.”  
“What is it?” John asked.  
“Infinitely better than anything you like Egbert, that’s what,” Dave answered.  
Some time later, after Dave had serenaded John with Freeze Ray, to much giggling on the blue eyed boy’s part, Karkat found himself roped into singing Penny’s part in My Eyes while Dave sang Billy’s. He was rolling his eyes at first, but soon got as into it as Dave was. John was actually a little jealous, watching them duet together. They were just so passionate, having so much fun, he wished that he knew the words well enough to sing along too. Not that he didn’t have his own fun, barely keeping it together while he was singing Everyone’s A Hero In Their Own Way. He was so mad with Dave after the ending.  
It was ten, and John wheedled Karkat into staying for “just one more, we haven’t even seen Rent yet, pleeeease?”  
John got really into the movie, singing along with the chorus, and watching Collins closely, studying the way this actor portrayed him. When I’ll Cover You came, he felt like he did a pretty good job singing along to his part. "Open your door, I'll be your tenant, don't got much baggage to lay at your feet, but sweet kisses I've got to spare. I'll be there, and I'll cover you."  
By the time the song was finished, Karkat was staring at him like they were seeing him for the first time, and Dave had a smug little smirk on his face like something had gone just according to plan. John glanced from one to the other questioningly, but the movie was still playing, so he switched his attention pretty quickly back to that.  
Some of the choreography in La Vie Bohem made him blush. “Well that’s going to be um, fun.”  
Karkat buried their face in their hands. “I doubt Miss Peregrine is going to make us do what they’re doing. It’s not like rolling around on the table together or flashing Benny and his investors is in the stage directions, those were all directorial choices.”  
“Oh.”  
“We’ll still have to be way too close for comfort though. Just, I dunno, act like you’re into it and think of England.”  
Dave snorted and John snickered, though for different reasons. “Okay Karkat, thanks for the advice.”  
It was a quarter to midnight, and John called his dad, who was perfectly willing to drop Karkat off at his house. His dad was pretty great sometimes.  
“So hey, we should all exchange numbers so we can contact each other for rehearsals and stuff,” Dave suggested.  
“Good idea. I mean I have yours, but Karkat doesn’t, I don’t think.” John glanced to Karkat, who shook their head.  
“Nope. Just don’t call me for anything but rehearsals, okay?”  
“What about musical night?” John inquired. “We should totally make this a regular thing.”  
Karkat’s attempted glower faltered, surprise showing in their eyes. “If you really want to, then sure. I mean, I guess.”  
So Karkat exchanged numbers with Dave and John, trying to hide the fact that they were happy that they were being invited to come back. It was a strange feeling, like being invited to a party for the first time, a sensation of “oh, you mean you actually want me here, intruding on your fun?”  
John’s phone buzzed, and he picked it up quickly. “It’s Dad, he’s here.”  
“See you guys tomorrow then.” Dave gave a small wave.  
“Not if I see you first, Strider,” Karkat responded, almost rather playfully.  
“Bye Dave!” John gave his best friend a hug.  
After they’d left, Dave smiled to himself a little. It was fair to say he’d been trying to play matchmaker tonight a little. It didn’t take a romance expert (cue eye rolls at Kit-Kat) to see that the two would be good for each other. His work was far from over though, he knew.


	4. Why Do We Love When She's Mean?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave deals with Rose, while Kanaya and Vriska do the tango.

John was bored beyond belief. It was history class, the last class of the day. He was supposed to be taking notes, but he would rather just watch as the minutes crawled by, agonizingly slow, like watching glaciers melt. Five more minutes of class, four more minutes of class, tick, tick, tick. The teacher droned on in a voice that was made to be tuned out, three people were chewing gum, the girl in front of him was doodling a rosebud in the margins of her notebook. Two more minutes of class, tick, tick, tick. Some people were already putting their stuff away in their backpacks in anticipation of the bell. One more minute, tick, tick, tick.  
Suddenly, there was a meow from behind him. It sounded like a hungry kitten, mewling insistently. Then it repeated. He turned, and saw Dave reaching for his pocket. “Sorry teach, gotta take this.”  
The teacher looked like he was about to protest, but then the bell rang, and thus, Dave was not technically talking on the phone in class when he swiped the screen to answer the call.  
“What’s new, Pussycat?” A pause. “Oh, Mister Vantas, I love the way you seduce me with your honeyed words!” He turned to John, hand clasped over his heart in a facsimile of a dreamy, love-struck boy. “He says he hates me!”  
John rolled his eyes, chuckling.  
“Haha, okay. What? Well yeah, I mean we got on the bus together this morning. ...Damn, I think I know where she might be. No, don’t worry, she’s going to be there. I’ll see you at rehearsals.” He hung up, and gave John a wry grimace. “So apparently Rose is skipping her English class now.”  
“What? Why? She loves English!” John asked, surprised.  
“Good question. Anyways, you go to rehearsal. I’ll find her, talk to her, you cover for us, okay? Can’t exactly just tell the teacher ‘sorry we’re late, Rose had some very important ditching to do,’ can we?”  
“Right…” John frowned. He wasn’t great at keeping secrets, but he understood why he should keep this one. “See you there?”  
Dave shook his head. "I hope so, but, it depends on whether she's good to go or not. I told Kit-Kat I'd get her there, but... if she can't dance, then I'll just get Bro to come take her home.

Dave found Rose in her usual spot, a blind spot out back of the school that couldn’t be seen from the windows. “Hey.”  
“Go ‘way.” Rose was ordinarily a philosophical drunk. Today, however, it seemed that she was a sad drunk.  
“Nope.” He sat down beside her, leaning his side against hers. “As your brother, it is my solemn duty to give you shit for drinking when you have obligations to fulfill.”  
“I don’ wan’ yir shit, I got my own shit! Don’ gimme more shit!” She complained.  
“Rose, why are you here? You’re supposed to be at rehearsals. You were supposed to be at English class too. Karkat missed you.”  
“I knowww, but, wassa point?”  
“You like English.”  
“So…? ‘S still pointless. Everythin’s pointless.”  
“Kanaya will miss you if you don’t sober up and come to rehearsals.”  
“Kanaya… ‘sbetter odd wid’out me.”  
“She is not better off without you.”  
“Yesh she iiis!” Rose whined. “‘M terrible! Lookit me! ‘M a useless drunk…”  
“Okay, come on, let’s get you home. You are not sober enough to dance, and no amount of coffee is going to fix that.” Dave somehow managed to get her arm around his shoulder and pull her up to a semi-erect position. He half-guided, half-dragged her to the bus stop, where he made a phone call to his bro.

Dave showed up to rehearsal midway through John and Karkat practicing choreography for I’ll Cover You.  
Rose didn’t.  
John would have asked Dave about it, but then it was his turn on stage, practicing Light My Candle with Terezi. For someone who never showed whether they were flustered or not, Dave acted the flustered, broken musician well.  
“Where the hell is Rose?” Vriska demanded.  
“Yeah, sorry, she… had to go home. It was um, a ladies problem.” That was possibly the worst like John had ever seen Dave tell. He was usually better at hiding the fact he was lying than that sorry excuse for deception! Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Kanaya was glaring at him like Rose’s absence was his fault.  
“If she needed a tampon, she could have just asked me!” Vriska complained.  
“She gets really bad cramps,” Kanaya said flatly. “I can stand in for Joanne if you like,” she volunteered.  
Miss Peregrine sighed. “Fine, yes, no need to waste perfectly good rehearsal time for Vriska just because Miss Lalonde had to go home.” She started the music.  
“The samples won’t delay, but the cable-” Kanaya began.  
“There’s another way. Say something, anything.” Vriska sang-told her.  
“Now you walk over to the mic,” Miss Peregrine instructed over the music.  
Kanaya walked up to the microphone. “Test one, two, three.”  
“Anything but that,” Vriska said, sounding truly annoyed.  
“This is weird.”  
“It’s weird.”  
“Very weird.”  
“Fuckin’ weird.”  
“I’m so mad that I don’t know what to do. Fighting microphones, freezing down to my bones, and to top it all off I’m with you!” She put some of her frustration with Rose’s absence into her performance, and it showed. She seemed to fit into the character like a hand into a glove crafted just for it.  
“Feel like going insane? Got a fire in your brain? And you’re thinking of drinking gasoline?” Vriska moved closer to her, accompanied by a “Good, good, good!” from Miss Peregrine.  
“As a matter of fact-”  
“Honey, I know this act- it’s called the Tango Maureen.” They were face to face now, and at the prescribed distance for the scene, but Vriska kept moving closer anyway. “The Tango Maureen!” She took Kanaya by the waist and spun her. “It’s a dark, dizzy merry-go-round!” She dipped her. “As she keeps you dangling-”  
“You’re wrong,” Kanaya protested.  
“Your heart she is mangling!” Vriska swooped her up from her dip, so now they were only inches apart from each other.  
“It’s different with me-”  
Vriska released her suddenly, walking back to her little X of blue tape, all the while singing. “And you to toss and you turn, 'cause her cold eyes can burn, yet you yearn and you churn and… rebound!” She turned around and offered her hand out to Kanaya.  
“I think I know what you mean.” Kanaya stepped forward and put her hand over hers.  
Together, they sang, “The Tango Maureen.”  
The song continued, and Vriska continued to adlib choreography that would get her closer to Kanaya. By the end, they were facing each other directly, despite occasional reminders from Miss Peregrine to “Cheat out!”  
“Why do we love when she’s mean?”  
“And she can be so obscene? My Maureen…”  
“The Tango Maureen!”  
And then, suddenly, yet to the surprise of absolutely no one who had been watching the show, there was lip contact. Quite a lot of lip, and tongue, and whoa, hey, potentially tongue-to-tonsil contact. Kanaya would later swear that Vriska had started it, but no one else would really be able to confirm or deny.  
Miss Peregrine tried clearing her throat tactfully a couple of times. When this failed, she settled for the less discreet method. “Girls! A kiss is not in the stage directions!”  
They broke apart, and Kanaya instantly staggered back, a look of confusion on her face. Vriska turned to face the teacher. “Sorry Miss Peregrine, we were just adlibbing!”  
Miss Peregrine raised her eyebrows, giving Vriska a frank look. “Really?  
“It was just the heat of the moment, that’s all!” Kanaya said, a little too loudly, more to herself than Miss Peregrine.  
John glanced at Dave, who glanced back. “Well that was…” he began.  
“Hot?”  
“I was gonna go with bad. Aren’t you mad? She just macked on your sister’s girlfriend!”  
“I dunno, it might be good for them to spend some time apart. Distance makes the heart grow fonder.”  
“Yeah, and the person you like making out with other people shatters the heart into itty bitty bits!”  
Dave shrugged. “I’m just thinking Rose needs a wake up call, and my voice ain’t doing the trick. I think maybe if she thought she might really lose Kanaya, she’d realize how important their relationship is to her. She needs a perspectives check.”  
“If you say so, bro,” John said skeptically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a point of interest, Broadway Karkat has done an adaptation of this song!
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWFSsz2KSYg


	5. Very Serious Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is there just to be misleading. This is, in fact, a fluff chapter in which John realizes he finds Karkat adorable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mike and Tanner are occasionally referred to collectively as Mituna, because that's how they used to pronounce their names. IDK, I just thought that a single small child wasn't nearly enough stress for Karkat apparently.

Children were screaming, the television was blaring some god-awful cartoon garbage, and Karkat could not take much more of this. They hated babysitting. They were was seriously two seconds from telling Sollux’s twin younger brothers to SHUT THE FUCK UP, but they knew that wouldn’t do them much good in this situation.  
Then their phone rang.  
Caller ID said it was The Bucktoothed Idiot, AKA John Egbert.  
“Mike, Tanner, I’ve got to take this. If you can be quiet for one whole minute, I promise I will give you both a cookie.” They answered the phone.  
“Karkat, I’ve got a serious problem!” Came blurting out of the phone before they could even give their customary ornery greeting. They blinked.  
“What? What is it?”  
“I have, here before me, way too god damn much cake.”  
“...Your very serious problems are different from mine.”  
“It was a joke! But I really do have a heck ton of cake here. Wanna come over and run lines so you can help me eat some of it?”  
“Do we get our cookies now?” Tanner whined.  
Karkat glared at him. “It hasn’t been a minute yet, and now you’ve just started the minute back over, because you talked. -Sorry John, I was just talking to the hellspawn. I’m babysitting tonight, I can’t go anywhere. Tempting as the offer does sound, I can’t let these two hellions burn down the house.”  
“I didn’t know you babysat!”  
“I’m a constant surprise. An ethereal enigma,” They said flatly.  
On the other end of the line, John chuckled. “Well maybe I can come over there then! I could even bring some cake for the kids.”  
“Don’t you fucking dare! If you get these kids high on sugar Egbert, I swear to every god you know, I will end you!”  
Mike giggled. “He said the F-word!”  
Tanner pouted. “We get in trouble if we use that word! It’s not fair!”  
“You two are never getting those cookies if you keep interrupting me like this,” Karkat threatened.  
“So does that mean I can come over as long as I don’t bring cake?” ...Why did he sound he so _excited?_ Karkat sighed.  
“Yeah, sure, lemme give you the address. Don’t forget your script!”

John knocked on Karkat’s door some fifteen-odd minutes later. They answered, and were met by that ~~handsome~~ irksome perpetual smile that made them wonder just what the brain-addled nitwit was so happy about.  
“Hi Karkat!”  
“Hi John. Please, come in.” Karkat said as sardonically as they could. They let John in.  
“Who’s this fucker?” Mike asked. Since Karkat had been overheard saying the F word, they had engaged in and for the most part lost a lively debate about whether the twins could use it too.  
John nonetheless beamed at the child as though he were the doting aunt from out of town he never had. “Hi! I’m Karkat’s friend.”  
“In the loosest sense of the term ‘friend,’” Karkat growled. “We’re in a play together.”  
“Yup!” John beamed, coming inside and looking around the house. “Wow! Your house is really small!”  
In the past, John had given Karkat a hurt look whenever they’d grumbled any kind of insult at him, but today he seemed impervious to their remarks. They tried again. “Of course it’s small, maggot-head, we’re not upper-middle class! See? Like I could befriend someone so brain-dead. Might as well befriend pondscum!”  
John chuckled, the little shitstain! How dare he not take Karkat’s anger seriously! “I like it, it’s cozy.”  
It took Karkat a moment to realize that he was talking about the house. “It’s not cozy, it’s cramped. Go around a corner too fast and you’re going to bump into a wall- that goes double for fumble-foots like you.”  
“Hey Tanner! Karkat’s got a boooyfriend!” Mike called. Tanner came racing into the room, so fast that John actually reached out to catch him in case a wall jumped out at him from out of nowhere like Karkat had warned.  
“He’s not my boyfriend,” John and Karkat said simultaneously.  
Mike and Tanner gave them skeptical looks. “That’s what the boy and the girl who wind up dating in the end always say!”  
“Sure, in movies,” John agreed. “But life’s not always like movies. So anyways, do… you guys want to help Karkat and me run lines?”  
“How the hell could they help? They can’t read, dumbass! Go watch cartoons, you unholy spawn of satan!” Karkat shooed the twins away, scowling.  
The twins did not go watch cartoons. “But we want to stay here with you,” Mike protested.  
Bullshit, they just wanted to be annoying.  
“Are you sure? We’re just going to be doing a bunch of boring teenager stuff; Spongebob Squarepants is going to be much more entertaining than we are, I promise,” John told him.  
“What kind of boring teenager stuff?” Tanner inquired.  
“Mostly just practicing saying things someone wrote for us to say a very long time ago. And kissing.”  
“Eeewwww!” Tanner grabbed Mike’s hand and they went off to the livingroom, where soon cartoon noises could be heard.  
John flashed Karkat a conspiratorial grin. “At that age, that always looses ‘em. They still think girls have cooties!”  
Karkat stared at him, wondering how the hell he had managed to drag yet another point from them on their personal respectometer. Why couldn’t he just let them hate him like any decent person? “We can read lines in the kitchen, we should be safe from the little monsters for a little while in there.”  
“Haha, speaking of little monsters, did you ever see that movie starring Howie Mandel…?”

“...So actually, about the kissing thing…” John began, after about twenty mintes of running each other through their few lines not in song.  
“I asked Miss Peregrine, she said that she won’t make us do it if we’re uncomfortable, but she also sort of implied that if we don’t, she will make us do stage work instead.” Karkat grimaced.  
“I don’t mind, actually. I mean, it’s not like we have to make out on stage, just a couple quick kisses. I just wanted to um, clarify. I am not a homosexual.”  
“WELL ITS A GOOD THING THAT NEITHER I, NOR THE CHARACTER I AM PLAYING ARE STRICTLY BOYS THEN!” ...That had come out much louder than Karkat had intended. John was staring. “...Please don’t tell anyone at school I said that.”  
“Yeah! I mean, yeah, no, of course not! I’m just… So wait, you’re transgender? Um, sorry, have I been using the wrong pronouns?”  
Karkat sighed. Oh well, he seemed to be taking it well. Better than his father had, at any rate. He was cool about it now, but in the beginning… he hadn’t understood. “No. The truth is, I don’t really know what I am. Some days I feel more like a boy, some days I feel more like a girl. Most days, I just feel like me. And I’m not out, so even though I really feel more like a ‘they’ than a ‘he,’ ...you couldn’t have known that.”  
John smiled. “Oh, okay. So how do you feel today?”  
Alright, he got bonus points for not asking ‘what are you?’ Karkat figured that merited an answer, so they pulled up their sleeve, revealing a few temporary butterfly tattoos. “I tend to hide it when I’m feeling feminine, most people wouldn’t understand, but I always express it in some way. Otherwise it doesn’t feel real.”  
Did John’s eyes always sparkle like that when he smiled? Were they just noticing it now because he was sitting right across the table from them? “Alright, that’s adorable.”  
“I will murder you and stuff you into an elevator shaft.”  
“Utterly adorable.”  
“Fuck you!”  
“So about the kissing thing, we should probably rehearse that too. We can’t go out on stage looking like that’s our first time actually making lip contact, that would just be awkward. Even though I know you don’t like me, we still have to be able to act like we’re in love.” John babbled, still grinning. He scooted closer to Karkat.  
Karkat gave him an evaluating glare. “Can I really trust you not to tell people at school? I get pushed around enough as it is.”  
John blinked, honest shock on his open face. “You get pushed around?”  
“I’m latino, and vaguely effeminate, of course I get pushed around.”  
“I’m just a little surprised. You don’t take anybody’s crap.”  
“Yeah, and a whole heap of good all my creative insults do me when there are three guys and each of them is twice my size.” Karkat wasn’t bitter, no not at all.  
“Well obviously, a secret’s a secret, and this one’s yours to tell. I’m not going to tell anyone you don’t want to know.”  
Karkat relaxed a little. “You’d better,” they growled half-heartedly. As if John ‘I’m so perfect’ Egbert was going to do anything other than keep his word.  
John started to lean in slow, like Karkat was a small and timid creature he wanted to avoid startling away. About halfway across the distance between them, his eyes closed. Karkat gave an impatient little grunt and accelerated things maybe a little too fast, their face crashed into his, and teeth that weren’t theirs clattered against their own.  
“Ow!” John recoiled.  
Karkat pulled away too, crossing their arms over their chest, shrinking into themself. “Sorry.”  
John chuckled. “See? If that had happened on stage, it would have been really embarrassing! Let’s try again.”  
Karkat looked up at him with an incredulous look that said ‘really? After that disaster?’ “Fine, but only one more try. If the twins see anything, it’ll be hell explaining to their parents why we were kissing instead of watching the little brats.”  
“Okay, no pressure then!” Holy hell, John actually looked nervous! Karkat tried to think of something scathing to say about it, but then their deep brown eyes were captured by piercing blue ones, and they lost their track of thought. This time, they both leaned in together. John angled right, so their noses avoided collision, they both closed their eyes, and then their lips met.  
Karkat had sort of expected fireworks. What they got instead was… nice. No firy passion, just soft lips pressing gently against theirs, the faint scent of cake and lavender soap, and a swarm of butterflies in their chest. As if on a silent mutual agreement, both they and John pulled away at the same time.  
“Um, see? That wasn’t so bad, was it?”  
“It was surprisingly tolerable, considering how utterly intolerable I find you personally.” They were downplaying the kiss’s significance a bit. There wasn’t any way they were admitting how utterly romantic they had found it. He’d been so careful, like he was worried they might break.  
He stood, blue eyes twinkling again. “Oh good. That was kind of my first kiss, so I’m glad I didn’t botch it up!”  
He left, heading in the direction of the living room, presumably to check on the twins. Karkat chewed their lip, suddenly feeling a pang of mixed emotions. On one hand, they now felt incredibly embarrassed that they’d ruined the real first kiss by rushing into it, while on the other, their lips kept remembering the feel of John’s lips against them, and they wanted it ~~not~~ to stop!  
They followed John when the sound of cartoons stopped playing in the background, and they realized that they had allowed him to be in a room alone with that pair of hell beasts. They came into the livingroom to find John starting to sing a kids’ song about someone’s uncle who went waltzing with bears. Mike and Tanner seemed incredibly amused by it, and Karkat leaned up against the doorway to watch. John gave no indication of noticing them, until the chorus came around again, at which point he stopped and urged Karkat to join.  
By the time the parents showed up to take Mike and Tanner home, they had to carry them because John had somehow managed to get them to sleep. Left alone, they both found it a little difficult to look at each other.  
“I’ll see you on Monday?” John finally said.  
“Yeah. See you at rehearsals.”


	6. Everything's Fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late night phonecalls about your alcoholic friend are almost never a good sign. Kanaya tries to deal with Rose's downward spiral, while Rose struggles just to deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keeping up the misleading chapter title theme, this chapter is reflective of my own experiences with depression, and loving someone with an addiction. Trigger warning for drinking, depression, self-destructive urges, and suicide mention. Don't worry though, nobody is actually going to die, I would not do that to you. You came here for a high school musical, for god's sake!

Kanaya’s phone buzzed. She assumed it was Rose (again) and ignored it. Vriska was practicing pretending to play guitar, and she was trying to show support by listening. Her phone buzzed again. She checked caller ID, and saw it was Dave. She picked up.  
“Hey, have you heard from Rose today?”  
“Not yet, but she’s been calling at least four times a day, so it’s only a matter of time really. Why?”  
“I just… I can’t find her. She’s not at her usual spot. Do you know where she might be?”  
“No, I’m sorry…” She glanced at Vriska. “I’d help you look, but I’m a little busy right now.” She hung up. She gave Vriska a too-bright smile. “You know what we should do? We should go to a party!”  
Vriska looked up at her and raised her eyebrows. “You, Fussyfangs? At a party?”  
“Yes! I’m sick of being ‘Fussyfangs,’ I’m sick of being the responsible one! We are going to a party, and we are going to consume copious amounts of alcohol, and then we are going to make out on someone else’s couch! Come on Vriska, get your coat!”  
Vriska shrugged. “Okay. Glad to see that even when you’re cutting loose a little, you still have an agenda.”  
Just before they entered the party (Kanaya didn’t ask how she’d found it), her phone rang again. Dave. She turned off her phone.  
Three dances and four drinks into the night, she asked Vriska to take her outside because everything was too warm and spinny. They sat together on a stranger’s porch, gazing out at the street and the city night sky which was freckled with stars, but not nearly as many as there should have been.  
“I still don’t get it.” Kanaya said eventually.  
“Get what?”  
“Being drunk… it’s fun, but… I still don’t get what she loves so much about it. Why she loves this feeling more than she loves me.”  
Vriska’s laugh was wry. “I should have known! ...I guess I did know. I’m just a distraction, aren’t I?”  
“No! You’re… I needed you.”  
“Needed, past tense?”  
“I’m sorry…”  
“Don’t be! It’s not like I ever needed you! I mean, you’re awesome, but it’s not like I thought this was going to last. Just a bit of fun, right?”  
“No! You’re… maybe. I don’t… I haven’t been thinking too much about it. For a change.”  
“But if she asked you to come back, you’d go.”  
“Yeah… probably.”  
“You wouldn’t even make it conditional, would you? No, ‘I’ll only come back if you stop drinking,’ nothing, you’d just go.”  
“Yeah, probably.”  
“You’re a real piece of work, Fussyfangs.”  
“Do you think she will? Ask for me back?”  
“Honestly? I think she’s got bigger things to worry about. It’s not about loving alcohol less or more than you, Kanaya, not everything in the world revolves around you. She's probably got other shit she has to deal with, shit that drinking makes go away for a while, you know. I may not know much, but I do know that addiction is never just about the fun parts.”  
Kanaya kissed Vriska, drink making her a bit clumsy.  
“What are you doing?” she demanded.  
“Using a distraction.”

John’s phone rang, and he answered immediately. “Hey Dave!” he bubbled cheerily.  
“Hey, John, could you do me a favor? Could you meet me somewhere? I think… Rose needs someone to talk to right now, and you know I’m not all that great at the... emotions stuff.”  
Something in Dave’s tone made John resist questioning why it was nearly ten o-clock at night, or why he was calling him instead of Kanaya. He just said, “Yeah, of course! Where?”  
The address that Dave gave was one in the city. It was an apartment building, but no one they knew lived in it, and John had to wonder why Dave wanted to meet there. He didn’t ask though, he just promised he would be there, and told his dad he needed to borrow the car.  
John’s father didn’t want to give him the keys at first, but he explained the situation, and he grew grim-faced and silently handed them over. “...Son?” he started to say something. John could see the deep worry in his grey, fatherly eyes. He saw the conscious decision his father made to not worry him with whatever troubled that stern brow, and all that was finally said was, “Drive safe.”  
John didn’t press him. How could he tell his father he could tell he knew something John didn't, after all? Instead, he simply nodded and took the keys.  
When he arrived at the apartment building, there was a police car already parked in front, and a small crowd was gathered. Dave was there, glasses reflecting the flashing police lights. He looked tired, worried. He was explaining something angrily to the police officers, but stopped when he saw John running over from his father’s parked car.  
“Hey, what’s going on? Is Rose in trouble?”  
“No, she’s fine.” Dave glared at the police officers. “These drama queens are all making a big deal out of something they don’t understand.”  
“You know this boy?” The police officer on the right demanded. He had an honest face, but a stern countenance, like everyone looked like a criminal to him, even John.  
“He’s a friend; he’s a lot more likely to get her to come down from there than all your Chicken Little bull shit.” Dave pointed, and John looked up.  
The apartment building had a kind of horizontal railing around each floor, broken only by balconies. The purpose of these railings, as John later found out after much pontificating on how dangerous they were, was actually to provide some degree of safety for window-washers.  
A girl who he only realized was Rose after a little squinting was sitting on the highest of these, right on the corner of the building, legs dangling over the edge.  
“Shit!”  
“Shit indeed,” the other police officer agreed. He had dark skin and a portly build. He had a demeanor that suggested he had been dragged out of bed just as he got to the middle of a really good episode of Orange Is the New Black for this shit, and he wanted nothing more than to go back there.  
“I’ve gotta go talk to her!” John exclaimed.  
“I’m sorry, but that’s against protocol. Someone else up there just increases the chances she’ll jump, or fall. If you want to talk to her, try calling.”  
“Her phone’s at home, still sitting on her bed!” Dave said harshly.  
“I’m going up there.” John told the officers, trying to do his father’s Do Not Argue With Me Young Man voice. Then he ran for the building doors, and didn’t look back, not even when he heard the officers shouting for him to stop.  
The elevators apparently shut down at ten. John sprinted up (almost) every flight of stairs. He was tired and panting by the time he got to the top, lungs aching, but still he ran. He only slowed down after he’d found the corner apartment, pounded on the door, found it open and abandoned, and run out to the balcony.  
He didn’t say anything when he saw Rose out on that railing, what could he say? There wasn’t anything he could tell her this far away from her, not anything that mattered anyways. So he carefully climbed up over the balcony’s edge and out onto the railing. His hand never left the side of the building as he climbed out along it. He got out to where she was, and sat down right along next to her, close enough that their arms touched.  
“Hey.”  
“I’m not planning on jumping, you know.” She sounded annoyed.  
“I didn’t say you were.”  
“But you think it. They all do.” She gestured down at the flashing lights below. Red, blue, red, blue, so much less urgent-seeming, seen from this distance. Almost pretty.  
John blinked at her, realizing that she is, unexpectedly, completely sober. She wasn’t handling it well either. There was no wind tonight, even up here it was quite warm, but she was shivering, teeth chattering. She was clear though. She was clearer than she’s been in a long time. “I was scared. When I saw you up here, I was scared you might. But now that I’m up here with you, I think I get it. You’re not up here to jump.”  
“Exactly.”  
“So why are you up here?”  
“To not jump.”  
He didn’t say anything to that, just stayed silent and waited for her to elaborate. It was a technique that she’d used on him often enough that it brought a flutter of pride to her heart.  
“You know that every year, people jump off the golden gate bridge to kill themselves. And every year, a few of them survive. I don’t know the exact statistics of this, but I do know this: every single one of them said that about half way down, all of the problems they thought were worth jumping over seemed insignificant. I don’t have to jump though, just being up here is enough. Can you see the people? They’re all so small from up here. And all the problems that seemed so crushingly huge from down there are small too. Sometimes, I think about dying. I scare myself. But then I come up here, or some similar vantage point, and my first thought is, ‘If I fell, how would I survive?’ That’s very comforting to me. I came up here to remind myself why I would never jump.”  
John smiled at her. "Well good, I'd be really sad if you were dead. You're my friend, you're important to me.”  
She smiled back, a little sadly. "And that's the other reason I can't jump. Because everything in this wonderful, terrible, crazy, fucked up world is infinitely big, and yet infinitely small. Down there, in day to day life, it's easy to feel insignificant. It's easy to forget why the things that matter to me matter. Can I really do everything I dream of doing? Can I really make the world a better place? What can I ever do that really matters? But look at them." She gestured out at the crowd gathered on the sidewalk. "They seem insignificant from way up here too, and yet, each of them is important, and has someone they're important to. And if I can make even just one of their problems a little bit better, then that makes the world a little bit better than it was yesterday. I don't know if that's why I was put here, if I even was put here, but it's why I stay. Maybe that's silly, to have such a hero complex like that, but it's better than that martyr complex I used to have at any rate." She chuckled.  
John nudged her shoulder. "I don't think it's silly. Thanks, for sticking around for the rest of us. Ready to get down from here yet?"  
Rose sighed. “I suppose, if I must. It’s just so pensive up here, everything’s so clear.”  
“Well there’s no rush.”  
“No, let me just… there’s something I want to take care of first.”  
She later insisted that the vomit was entirely a side effect of alcohol withdrawal, and that she really hadn’t aimed for the police officers on purpose.  
John argued with none of this, so it must have been true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone over the age of eight: Vomit humor isn't funny.  
> Me: *Makes vomit joke anyways* I am a master of comedy.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, criticisms? Please don't hold back! The next chapter will be up soon, I promise!


End file.
